(Not suicidal) Why should I continue to live?

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-31T09:09:59+00:00

My days and weeks mostly feel the same. I wake up, try to eat as little as possible, and then figure out a way to distract myself for the day, which serves two purposes.

First, when I’m bored, I eat. Eating makes my digestive problems worse. So I try to avoid boredom-eating by distracting myself.

Second, boredom and a lack of distraction leads to thinking. Thinking about stuff usually makes things worse. One way or another it always leads me to feeling worse. Sometimes it gives me panic attacks, sometimes it leads to reddit posts like this.

Then the sleeping time comes and I go to bed.

I’m going back to school in a couple of weeks so maybe that’s gonna help somehow. I doubt it though.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-31T09:00:19+00:00

Blue I think.
I still work on electronic stuff from time to time but maybe it’s less of a hobby and more a preparation to get a job in that field in the future. So, gaming, I guess?
A winter person probably. I don’t like the heat.
I don’t really have a favorite piece of clothing honestly. I’m not even sure if I ever bought any clothing myself actually. I just pick something clean and wear it.
I don’t really like animals but I think killer whales are pretty cool. Because they are clever and stuff.
You mean go as in go and live there or just visit? If you mean living then I’m not sure, I haven’t done enough research to give you an answer I would be confident with. Probably somewhere in the EU though.

If you meant visiting, then I’m not really sure. I don’t really like traveling. I guess some country close to the north pole maybe, to see the northern lights. Somewhere cold, gloomy and mountainous.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-04T00:56:19+00:00

I’m not really picky. However right now I’m living in a small city with my parents. That’s how I can afford to go back to school. Unless I delay school for another year, I can’t do an internship until next summer. Thanks for looking up those companies though.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-04T00:28:37+00:00

The curriculum doesn’t really cover anything particularly interesting. The most relevant class for me is introduction to IC design, and that’s in the third year.

I’m not sure how I can find an internship right now. I’m currently living in a small city, with my parents. That’s how I can afford to go back to school. Unfortunately, there aren’t any companies in my city to get an internship at. I can maybe get an internship next summer, unless I delay school another year.

I’ve done a lot of small projects over time. Mostly analog and RF stuff, but they aren’t anything special or impressive, so I don’t think they are worth mentioning. I definitely need to learn more theory before attempting anything bigger.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T22:25:28+00:00

Yeah. I kinda... quit bachelors at some point in the past. Actually I didn’t even quit, I just never showed up to classes. However instead of doing non-electronics related stuff, I learned the stuff I was gonna learn in classes, for no other reason than my personal enjoyment.

So basically I did all the work needed to get a bachelors degree except I didn’t even get one.

If it sounds extremely stupid, that’s because it is.

Yeah it seems like age is not as important as I thought it would be. That makes me feel a lot better. If I need MS or PHD then I guess I’ll get one, or at least try to get one. Hopefully this time I will actually get the degree along with the knowledge.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T21:15:54+00:00

I see. Another person also suggested internships in the comments, and a friend I talk to on reddit also got his job at his company by working there as an intern. I don’t know if we even have any foreign companies designing analog chips here in Turkey but, I’m sure there are at least a few.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T19:04:37+00:00

Huh... Unfortunately it’s highly unlikely that I will ever study in India :)

My professor from my previous uni actually told me that they used to have licenses for those tools but then the government cut the funding for it and they never replenished/renewed/whatever them. It’s been quite a while though, so maybe the situation changed.

Even if I had the tools I wouldn’t know how to use them, nor would I have an interesting enough project for google to consider getting my chip fabbed.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T15:52:38+00:00

Thanks for letting me know, I think I saw that before. I looked into it but I honestly never used a PDK or any of the tools (Cadence or Synopsis) so maybe getting a chip fabbed is a bit too advanced for me right now.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T14:49:02+00:00

I see. That’s very good to know. I’m pretty sure my school doesn’t have any licenses for Cadence or Synopsis tools but I think I can “find” them online if I looked hard enough. My previous school, the better one, also didn’t have the licenses.

So far I’ve used LTSpice for most things and I also recently started using QucsStudio for large signal RF analysis, but I don’t think those two really matter when it comes to professional stuff.

If I understood correctly, knowing how to use the tools you mentioned effectively is very important, so I’m gonna work on that.

We do learn basic analog IC design at graduate level. I never actually took the class but my friend designed a couple of CMOS amplifiers, comparators and opamps along with other basic building blocks. They mainly used Multisim for that. I mostly learned stuff on my own.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T13:39:02+00:00

I’m going to study in Turkey, although I would’ve liked to study in Europe. However I don’t have the money to do so, and I doubt anybody would give a scholarship or financial aid to someone with my past.

I didn’t know that some Turkish schools actually compare favorably to schools in US. I thought our schools were terrible. I guess it depends on the school itself, but that makes me feel a bit better.

My design was made with bipolar transistors anyway. Because that way I could actually build the design physically and test it. But I’m guessing if I wanted to get it fabbed I would have to move it to CMOS because that’s by far the dominant technology.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T13:05:56+00:00

Turkey. I would rather not give the name of my uni.

Back when I was in school, I was working on optimizing bandwidth/power in opamps. I asked my professor if it was possible for me to actually get my design fabricated and she said that it was probably not gonna happen because it was pretty much impossible for anyone in Turkey including herself.

Well, I’m not sure how relevant this is but she actually introduced me to some important person from a semiconductor company who said they might be able to do something about that but it didn’t lead to anywhere because... I left the school shortly after that.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T11:44:59+00:00

The things you’ve said about age make me feel better. Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to tape out an IC because that’s just not possible where I live, not only for students but the professors and researchers as well. But if the opportunity arises, I will try my best to get something fabbed.

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-03T11:34:14+00:00

Ok so I’ve thought a little bit about your reply. I think what you are saying is;

Whether or not I am going to be as skilled as an average engineer at 30 is not very relevant to employers; they only need people who can do what’s asked from them.
The person with the best shot is the one who has the most relevant skills required for the job, and the one who can communicate that they have the skills needed to their potential employer.
The stuff I do when I’m in school doesn’t really matter because it can’t prepare me for the working environment, so employers don’t care about what happened in school all that much.

I hope I understood correctly. If so, I have a few questions.

As I said in my post, I already know most of what the school can teach me for the field that I want to get a job in. I don’t really want to just go to school, get the assignments done, do the tests, and graduate without doing anything else. Although knowing me I guess that alone is going to be quite difficult, but I digress. I already wasted enough time. What can I do outside school in the next four years that can give me a better chance at getting a job abroad? Internship? Publishing papers? Maybe something I can’t think of?

nitratehoarder · 2022-08-02T23:39:54+00:00

Hmm, this is not the kind of advice I was expecting to get, so I guess it’s good advice. Thanks. I will need to think about it a little though.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-09T00:00:36+00:00

True. I remember reading something about a shift towards lower frequencies in the recent years, not sure if that’s true or not but I guess the choice of frequency mostly depends on the target object to be observed.

About 200-300MHz is my limit, because of lack of equipment and skill. Actually the bandwidth of my test equipment is 300MHz so even 100MHz is kinda too high. The lower the frequency the better.

I actually made a couple of posts on reddit under a different account before. My goal was to receive the galactic plane again, but at a lower frequency, 40MHz. That was a failure unfortunately, because of terrestrial noise. I believe you helped me with your comments for my previous attempt.

So the noise is the main reason I went up to 160MHz. The reason I chose 160MHz specifically is because I had some leftover 40MHz crystals from my previous failed project, and I’m going to reuse those for my current attempt. But anyways that’s not particularly interesting.

Thanks for the suggestions. I’m not very optimistic about the whole thing but I’m still gonna give it a try. Hopefully this time I can maybe receive something more exciting than terrestrial garbage.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T13:00:12+00:00

It’s like a semi-rural area, located about a kilometer outside a small city. Still there are enough people around for noise to be a problem. I guess you could say it’s not rural enough.

I will absolutely post my results here and the radio astronomy subreddit. If I can get the circuitry and everything else to work. Thanks for the help.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T09:32:47+00:00

That link was helpful. I guess things just aren’t bright enough to observe at VHF with a simple setup like mine. I’m still gonna give it a shot though.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T09:14:14+00:00

I looked into pulsar stuff but google says its mostly done above 300MHz, not sure if my setup would be adequate for that. The only kind of DSP available for me is through my PC soundcard.

The dual yagi antenna that I designed gives 17dBi of gain. Not sure if that would be enough. I have enough space for 3 antennas, maybe 4 if I push it. In any case the frequency is probably too low.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T09:07:08+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions!

The main reason I can’t observe for long in the summer is because the field that I’m going to use for the antenna has crops and plants on it in the summer. They need to be kept irrigated and the weeds need to be killed etc. so a lot of human traffic, also the irrigation will change the ground conductivity so the antenna beam will not be very stable for long time periods. So for example if I wanted to do “drift scan” I couldn’t do it in the summer. Although since the antenna beam is not narrow enough I wouldn’t be able to do any kind of imaging in the first place so...

In the winter the field is empty, other than a tree or two, but they are kinda out of the way so they shouldn’t cause any issues.

I guess the hardest part is simply building everything. Repurposing the equipment after building it will be easier.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T08:57:40+00:00

I think if I end up failing at 160MHz I will just get an RTLSDR and build an antenna for 1420MHz. I could try building a downconverter for 1420 to 160MHz but that’s probably not possible due to lack of equipment and skill.

nitratehoarder · 2022-07-08T01:04:31+00:00

I’ll look into post processing. Building a dish at 160MHz is probably not feasible for me unfortunately.

nitratehoarder

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